Brian Kang

Oona,
LEED has been growing extremely fast these couple of years, at least in California and the bay area. Clients, public and private, are becoming much more aware of LEED and are requesting that we follow the requirements whether they are or are not applying for accreditation on a project. About half of our office of 50 is now LEED certified.…[Read more]

My apologies to this group. I have been a bit busy with realities of work.

How was the Festival of Places by the way? I also miss ESF…

Sketchup doesn’t have the accuracy. It is clumsy in comparison. I have never drawn a vector in 3ds 300,000′ on accident like I have in sketchup. One of the reasons you dont see process drawings in 3ds is that you would have to render them and due to the fact that 3ds is such a fluid process it doesn’t make much sense to do that. The idea that…[Read more]

Nick, I cannot believe that you did not give Mark the credit he deserves for his whole interim period. I never thought i would see you make a mistake, especially an easy one such as rounding.

Oh & GO BISON on Friday!!!!!!!!

oh and nick, mark has actually been interim director for about 1.6 years now… no big deal, you were pretty close i guess…

Thanks! you should have seen the play in game, it came down to the last seconds… Im not the biggest basketball fan in the world but that was pretty exciting. Not bad for some North Dakota land grant school, eh? We probably wont make it past the first round but hey, pretty fun stuff nontheless.

Rfox,
maybe we could start up a forum called “new and exciting software” or something along those lines? do you have any ideas?.. I think as 3ds group we should try to grow this dialog on cutting edge design software, i think its pretty valueble to us and the profession.

i agree. i think i do pretty well at envisioning a space in my mind when designing, but this is always imperfect. I think it is extremely helpful to throw initial design ideas into 3ds to get a clear idea of what is working, viewsheds, scale ect… then pull back and design more. I think people should take advantage of the flexibility of using the…[Read more]

Hi Doug,

Check out the California Model Water Efficient Landscape Ordinance, at http://www.owue.water.ca.gov/. It is in the process of final revision and is set to go into effect January 2010. It outlines the services and responsibilities of CIDs.

The CID process is pretty involved with classes and tests and can take awhile to get certified. If…[Read more]

I’ve used 3ds max in the design development phase a good bit. For me its much easier and quicker to take a CAD site map into 3d max and pop up buildings, basic trees, etc. Doesn’t look pretty but it gives you a better feel for your site and its alot more accurate and faster than sketchup.

can we get some examples up RFox? Maybe pictures and links? Thank for the comment. Would love to see some one who is using it consistently.

Doug,
Yes there is merit. I run a design build firm that does some bid build as well. Some of the irrigation ‘designs’ that come out of some other offices that we bid on don’t follow simple irrigation principles and spec antiquated equipment.
The IA certification (CID) is a good one. I became certified a few years ago. I am always up to date with…[Read more]

Hey everyone. I’d like to get your opinion. Does anyone see any merit in becoming certified in irrigation design? The IA offers courses and testing in irrigation design that we as landscape architects would be eligible to take. While there is a great irrigation knowledge base at my office, I feel like so much has changed over the years that I need…[Read more]

The real power of 3d software as a design tool comes with the use of BIM and parametric software. Personally I am looking at the use of Digital Project and software developed by Gehry Technologies from the engineering software Catia.

It is good because design and landscape are all about relationships, whether they be spatial or connection. DP…[Read more]

one thing I find interesting is the advertisement for Vectorworks in the upper right hand corner. Does anyone use it?

Nick, happy to see you on here. I could go on for days, however, I think the one thing you need is an unbelievable familiarity with the software. That keeps you quick. In terms of these being final renderings I am not sure, I think they probably are but at the moment I and a number of others are doing there complete drawing set in 3ds. In terms of…[Read more]

another reason squint opera is so good, is the fact that they are showing obvious aging and patina of materials. So many times in 3D models, the final product looks great, but too perfect. As designers using the computer as a medium, I think we need to pay more attention to the “imperfect” parts of design and how they can really convey a sense of place…

just to let you all know, when i put up the new images of the week i will place the old ones in the gallery. I also put a topic for discussion in there. If you know of any firms you want me to take a look at for next week let me know. also if you would like me to mix in some of your personal work let me know. first images of the week worked out! right on.

Squint opera is a media and film production studio
http://www.squintopera.com/#/studio/
i understand, that although they employ also architects they don’t design places.

it might not be practical for us to spend that much time for creating renderings or animation. i also suppose they apply a variety of progarmmes, such as maya or 3ds max, after…[Read more]